4. Creating a “Blue Ocean” Practice

Focusing on quality over quantity is a crucial aspect of implementing a successful Blue Ocean strategy for your nutrition practice.  When you deliver high-quality services, you’ll attract the right kind of client. You’ll serve your existing clients at a higher level and you’ll improve client satisfaction, which ultimately leads to retention and referrals. Today, we are diving into the concept of the Blue Ocean strategy and how it can help you set your practice apart from the competition. This strategy has had a significant impact on my business, so I’m excited to share it with you. 

We’ll cover:

• The concept of the Blue Ocean strategy
• Basic Blue Ocean strategies
• Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
• Non-negotiables as a private practice nutritionist to establish dominance in your market

The Concept of the Blue Ocean Strategy vs The Red Ocean

Let me start by explaining what a Blue Ocean is in business and how it’s different from a Red Ocean. A Blue Ocean is defined by its lack of competition from other businesses. It’s a space where you can be free to be creative and make decisions without really worrying about what others are doing or offering. This encourages innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking to find solutions that are truly unique and different from anything else in the market. In contrast, a Red Ocean is a crowded feeding frenzy in shark-infested waters where businesses compete fiercely for customers and market share. Which type of ocean would you rather dive into each day?  I know it’s a rhetorical question because most of us would say the Blue Ocean as navigating shark-infested waters can be exhausting and risky, and leave us feeling like our practices are not safe.

The Blue Ocean Strategy and My “Aha Moment”

Four years ago, I read Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee A. Mauborgne. I don’t even remember why I initially got the book, but at the time I was desperate to figure out my current business situation. I was consuming a lot of business-related materials in hopes of figuring it out. I became obsessed with the Blue Ocean idea and knew that I needed to implement the strategy. I originally pivoted away from private practice dietetics to create a better meal planning solution as none of the existing platforms that I had tried worked for me or my clients for a variety of reasons. Essentially, my goal at the time was to build a better mousetrap.  That was my first big business mistake, and it wasn’t until I read Blue Ocean that I realized this. I was horrified because it was clear I was heading down the wrong path. Hundreds of thousands of dollars into software development and my reputation are on the line. I was only a few chapters in when I had an “aha” moment and not the good kind of “aha” moment. I realized I didn’t need to build a better meal-planning platform. What I needed to do was create an offer so different and so valuable that it would make my competition in the meal planning space irrelevant. I didn’t think about it much, but true to my roots as an evidence-based professional. I dove in, I followed the science, and I listened to the experts.  I became obsessed with creating my own Blue Ocean, leveraging my training and resources to build something unique and sustainable. Fortunately, I had spent years creating evidence-based content for my practice, so I decided to combine this library of materials that I had already built with my new meal planning software and offer it as a membership. In doing this, the value of my offer skyrocketed for the same cost or less than other meal-planning platforms. I was solving another really big problem for my ideal client’s content creation. You can do this in your practice, create something so valuable and so unique that it becomes easier for you to compete.

Basic Blue Ocean Strategies

To help you navigate toward a Blue Ocean for your nutrition practice, we are going to discuss three essential steps that you must take. 

Step 1

You need to identify your unique value proposition or your UVP, and you need to have a good one. You need to focus on quality over quantity and you need to create systematic processes in your practice. We’re going to start with identifying your unique value proposition. This is the first and essential step in creating a Blue Ocean strategy for your practice. Your UVP sets you apart from other nutrition professionals and should resonate with your ideal client. Here are some examples to inspire you to create your own Unique Value Proposition: Specialize in a specific dietary approach or population. You could focus on a particular dietary approach, such as plant-based nutrition, fertility, diets, or intuitive eating, for example.  Alternatively, you could specialize in a specific population like athletes, pregnant women, or individuals with diabetes. For example, your UVP could be something like an expert in plant-based nutrition for athletes or a diabetes nutrition specialist for pregnant women. If you have not already, be sure to listen to episode number one of this podcast, Are You Feeding Your Starving Audience? In that episode, I guide you on identifying a group of people who are eager and willing to buy what you have to sell. You want to emphasize your unique background and training. If you have a background in culinary arts or psychology, for example, you can incorporate that into your UVP. Your UVP could be a culinary nutritionist, combining science and flavor for optimal health, or something like a mindful eating coach merging nutrition and psychology. You might provide online consultations, group coaching, or meal prep workshops. Your UVP could be something like virtual nutritionists, convenient and effective online coaching, or nutrition group coaching, transforming your health into a supportive community. Something else you can consider for your Unique Value Proposition is leveraging technology to enhance your client experience.  Using innovative tools such as apps or wearable devices can help clients track their progress, set goals, and stay motivated.  You can also offer unique testing services such as genetic testing. Your UVP could be something like a tech-savvy nutritionist, harnessing technology for personalized nutrition plans, or something like “Eat your gene”, promoting longevity by giving your genes what they need to thrive. When identifying your UVP, consider what makes you unique and emphasize it in everything that you do.

Step 2

After identifying your unique value proposition, your next step to creating a Blue Ocean practice will be to focus on quality over quantity. Focusing on quality over quantity is a crucial aspect of implementing a successful Blue Ocean strategy for your nutrition practice. When you deliver high-quality services, you’ll attract the right kind of client. You’ll serve your existing clients at a different higher level, and you’ll improve client satisfaction, which ultimately leads to retention and referrals. Now, no one plans to deliver low-quality services. But sometimes we get hung up on creating more to compete and we let go of the details that matter to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. So let the following steps just serve as a reminder of how you can prioritize quality in your practice offerings.

First, personalized nutrition interventions tailor your nutrition interventions to meet each client’s unique needs, preferences, and goals. By understanding their individual challenges and aspirations, you can create a customized intervention that will yield better results and increase client satisfaction. This covers everything from targeted testing, like genetic testing,  within your scope of practice, of course, to a customizable meal plan. All are mapped out considering the total patient. You hear a lot about patient-centered care, but few practitioners do this full circle. Creating custom interventions with dynamic content that speaks directly to a client’s assessment and diagnosis will elevate your services. Having a well-defined niche can help you here as you can focus on some key interventions  then tweak them for all of your clients instead of recreating the wheel from scratch every time. For example, maybe you specialize in pre-diabetes and you have a program for managing blood sugars. If you do a complete assessment, you’ll understand how this intervention can look different across different clients. It will consider not only biometric data, such as blood sugar levels but softer measurements like readiness for change and culinary skill. Level One programs should not be a plug-and-play for all.

Second, remind yourself to prioritize quality in your services to engage in continuing education and staying up to date on research. Regularly updating your knowledge and skills in the field of nutrition by attending conferences,  workshops, and webinars is essential.  Being in the presence of like-minded professionals can help get you inspired. I know I always do when in the presence of colleagues who are on fire for nutrition as much as I am. This will enable you to provide your clients with the latest evidence-based recommendations and cutting-edge strategies for achieving their goals. Learn from others and apply it to your practice. But don’t limit yourself to education on nutrition science. I also encourage you to think about how you want to elevate your practice and seek out relevant learning opportunities such as in the fields of technology and counseling.

Third, consider elevating the quality of your services to build strong relationships, invest time, and get to know your clients on a deeper level. This includes understanding their lifestyle, motivations, and barriers to change by genuinely caring for your clients and demonstrating empathy, you can foster trust and create lasting connections. What does this look like? Maybe it’s hosting group counseling sessions and using motivational interviewing techniques to build rapport and deeper connections with clients. If you have not been trained in motivational interviewing techniques, I strongly encourage you to seek out educational opportunities in this discipline. It will not only help you build strong relationships, but it will support you with your continuing education.

Fourth, provide regular follow-ups and support. So this will also feed into number three, building strong relationships.  But by providing ongoing support to your clients through follow-up appointments such as email,  check-ins, and phone calls, we’ll let them know that you are thinking about them.This can help them stay accountable as well, and also track their progress and make necessary adjustments to the nutrition plans as needed. You can do this easily using tools like your practice management software for scheduling out simple text messages or your digital meal planner for leaving notes of affirmation. These go a long way to letting clients know that they’re on the top of your mind and that you are thinking about them. Lastly, you want to prioritize client education and empowerment. You want to provide your clients with the knowledge, tools, and skills that they need to make informed decisions about their nutrition and how they can take action to improve their health. This can include things like educational materials, workshops, or one-to-one coaching sessions. Empowered clients, those who have the confidence to make the changes that you are recommending are more likely to adhere to their plans and achieve lasting results. Therefore, sticking around to engage in more of your services and referring friends as well. By focusing on quality over quantity in your practice, you’ll not only attract more loyal clients but also improve customer satisfaction rates. This approach will help you establish trust and credibility within your community and contribute to bulletproofing the growth of your practice and your Blue Ocean strategy.

Step 3

The third step in creating a Blue Ocean practice is to establish systematic processes in your business. This helps ensure consistency and efficiency leading to a smoother client experience. If you don’t have basic systems in place, scaling and growth of your Blue Ocean practice will not be possible. Here are some non-negotiables as a private practice nutritionist to establish dominance in your market: The first non-negotiable is to standardize your counseling process. You’ve already been trained on this process, an evidence-based framework for conducting a counseling session. If you’re not familiar with this framework, listen up because it can be really helpful. The framework is called ADIME, an acronym that stands for Assess, Diagnose, Intervention, Monitor, and Evaluate. Each step of this process ensures quality nutrition care. What I want you to think about is what you can add to each step to differentiate your practice from the competitors. It gives you an excellent framework for adding valuable services to an evidence-based counseling process.  Here are a few examples for the assessment phase of the process:

1. Consider unique assessment tools, things as a visually based dietary intake questionnaire or culinary skills assessment. Maybe you want to include some testing services that are within your scope of practice, such as genetic or hormone testing. For the diagnosis piece of the counseling process, there’s little creativity that goes in here, but it’s worth reminding yourself that the diagnosis for nutrition professionals should always be intake-related, either excessive intake or inadequate intake.
2. If you are a physician, then disease diagnoses also fit here. A physician’s diagnosis might be something like Pre-diabetes, and a nutrition professional diagnosis would be excessive intake of high glycemic carbohydrates.  As the nutrition professional, your intervention will focus on the ladder. Of course, this leads to impacting the medical diagnosis but thinking about it this way helps us stay in our lane and craft an intervention that is targeted.
3. Now we move on to the Eye of ADIME intervention. Here is where you can be the most creative and differentiate yourself from the competition. You should build interventions that are engaging and dynamic, recognizing that people have different styles of learning. While a recipe might be good for some of your clients, a cooking video would be even more supportive, especially for visual learners.
4. Digital meal plans might be helpful for some, but they can be overwhelming for others. Look for tools that offer you flexibility as a practitioner to build and modify interventions to meet the needs of different clients.
5. Now we’ll move on to monitor and evaluate. “You can’t change what you can’t measure”. This is a quote that was often repeated by my professors in my Master’s program. If you pay attention to the ADIME and especially the I, the intervention part of your counseling process, monitoring and evaluating client progress will be easy.

What you should do here to set yourself apart from the competition in your Blue Ocean practice is to look for unique ways that you can monitor and evaluate client progress. Tools such as photo journaling and engaging quizzes to track client progress are just a few examples. The second non-negotiable systematic process that you need to have in place to establish a Blue Ocean practice is to have a client intake system and software to manage your client’s experience in your practice. Having these in place can help you develop a consistent process for not only onboarding new clients but also managing their experience while they’re working with you. Practice management software is key here, and there are plenty to choose from in the market. What you need to do is select one that at a minimum supports you with the delivery of standardized intake forms, things like HIPAA, compliance notices, and also a way to deliver your basic services to meet each one of your client’s unique needs. Practice management software includes electronic health record management and allows you to collect sensitive information and have a conversation with your clients while honoring HIPAA laws. This makes you look like a real pro and supports you in competing with practitioners who don’t use practice management software. While establishing a standardized counseling process and a software management system might require some initial effort, the payoff in terms of efficiency, scalability, and client satisfaction is well worth it.  

Content Cure for the Week 

There are key components to begin implementing a Blue Ocean strategy in your practice.

>CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK’S CONTENT BUNDLE<<

This is a strategy that is going to set you apart from the competition and give you the freedom to be innovative and creative in your practice without worrying about what everyone else is doing. The components of a Blue Ocean practice that we covered today are a unique value proposition. Focusing on quality over quantity, and having some key processes in place in your practice for your Content Cure. This week I’m providing you with a Blue Ocean Workbook. In it, you’ll be guided to craft a unique value proposition that is supported by quality services and delivered as a top-notch standardized client experience. 

1. Your first step will be to create your unique value proposition. Just follow the directions considering your ideal customer avatar and their pain points. Next, you’re going to do an audit of your services and the content that you are offering to attract, serve, and retain your clients. You’re then going to decide where you can do better and how you can set yourself apart from the competition.
2. Then you can start documenting processes in your practice. You do this by generating some standard operating procedures. You will be writing down some key information about a process inside of your practice, and it will make clear to you where you can improve that process. Perhaps start with your existing counseling process and use the counseling framework that we have covered here to improve your actions in each step of your client’s experience with you.
3. Once done, consider how you are currently managing your client experience and what steps you can take to improve it. Maybe you need to consider some practice management software, for example. And finally, I strongly encourage you to read the book Blue Ocean Strategy. I have focused on translating some key principles and applying them to nutrition practice in this episode, but there are so many more lessons to learn. 

Key Takeaway

Reflect on your strengths, passions, and what your ideal clients need. By clearly communicating your value, you can attract clients who resonate with your approach and set yourself apart from the competitors. Remember, your unique value proposition might evolve as you gain experience and learn more about your client’s needs. So be sure to stay open to growth and adaptation, and continuously refine your unique value proposition to remain relevant and innovative in your nutrition practice.